37% of SF’s homeless population is black. This is a heartbreaking problem

Jeff Kositsky, director of San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, left, greets John Earl whom Kositsky assisted while checking on the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) Tenderloin Operation in San Francisco on Tuesday, June 18, 2019.

Jeff Kositsky, director of San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, left, greets John Earl whom Kositsky assisted while checking on the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) Tenderloin Operation in San Francisco on Tuesday, June 18, 2019.

37% of SF’s homeless population is black. This is a heartbreaking problem

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As one of three dozen Chronicle staff members documenting 24 straight hours of homelessness in San Francisco this summer, I was tasked with writing about Food Runners, a nonprofit that picks up food from local businesses and delivers it to neighborhood food programs.

I attended a food delivery to Martin de Porres House of Hospitality on Potrero Avenue. While boxes of vegetables and day-old bread were dropped off at the site, I walked down the sidewalk taking notes of the scene. People were clustered in small groups chatting quietly. Interspersed among the groups were shopping carts, some stuffed with clothes and others filled with plastic bottles. A tent was situated near the front of the line, a pair of bare feet extending from its interior.

Nearly all of the people waiting in line for food were black.

Documenting plight and suffering is nothing new in journalism. I’ve been doing it since my days as a beat reporter in Louisiana, a state where hurricanes and catastrophic 500-year floods are all too familiar. But of all my time working for The Chronicle, the S.F. Homeless Project is the first assignment to drastically alter my perception of San Francisco.

The reason: When it comes to homelessness in this city, it seems like my people are suffering the most.

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San Francisco has a homeless population of 8,011, not counting people in jails, hospitals and rehabilitation centers, according to data collected by the city in January. Thirty-seven percent of that homeless population is African American. Thirty. Seven. Percent.

San Francisco is a living, breathing contradiction.

For black people in San Francisco, who account for only 5% of the city’s overall population, beauty and suffering are two sides of the same coin.

It’s a picturesque experience riding a cable car from Powell and Market over Nob Hill and down to Fisherman’s Wharf. But a stone’s throw from where that ride began is the Tenderloin, where you may literally have to step over black people sprawled across the sidewalk.

San Francisco is a global beacon for its food. The local restaurant industry, which I know well as a food writer, is thought to be one of the country’s more diverse culinary landscapes. Dinner for two can exceed $1,000 at Michelin-starred restaurants. None of these types of businesses are run by black people. In fact, most of the city’s black-owned restaurants are closing.

In the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, average salaries are among the world’s highest. In terms of diversity, San Francisco is wonderfully eclectic. Yet I saw more black people waiting for food outside of Martin de Porres than I ever have in a dining room of an upscale restaurant in San Francisco.

Through the S.F. Homeless Project, I also saw firsthand the efforts being made by the city to address the homelessness issue. Steps are being taken by Mayor London Breed’s administration, while nonprofits like Food Runners are doing what they can, albeit on a smaller scale.

On the day Food Runners stopped at Martin de Porres, the organization made 105 other food deliveries in the city between 8 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. On an average weekend, Food Runners will deliver roughly 17 tons of food to various locations in San Francisco. And based on the recent homeless data, the recipients are often black.

I know there is no true one-size-fits-all solution for homelessness. A blanket treatment for the plight of San Francisco’s dwindling black population doesn’t exist. In the end, the Homeless Project didn’t introduce me to a new San Francisco, but instead sharpened the image of one that I already knew: Black life doesn’t thrive in this city. And as a black person, it’s hard to love a place that doesn’t seem to love your people back.